A Ring From a Marquess

by Christine Merrill

  ‘You could have come to me,’ Stephen reminded him. It would not have been the first time that he’d needed to rescue his younger brother from his own folly.

  ‘Perhaps I should have,’ Arthur admitted. ‘Poor little Pratchet did not pay nearly so much as I’d hoped to get.’

  ‘Then why take them there?’

  ‘Two birds, Fanworth.’ Arthur smiled. ‘I was not the only one who needed rescuing. You were far too involved with the de Bryun woman. Something had to be done, before Larchmont got wind. I knew if Mother’s rubies turned up missing, sooner or later, you would go to her, seeking a replacement.’

  ‘Really.’ Arthur had approved of the idea when Stephen had suggested it. Since his younger brother’s judgement was notoriously bad, he should have seen it as an ill omen.

  ‘I thought you’d recognise the stones from the first. But you had them reset, ready to give back to Mother.’ Arthur laughed again. ‘It really is rather amusing, when you think about it.’

  ‘It. Is. Not.’

  ‘But it has given you a reason to put Margot de Bryun in her proper place, on her back and in your bed. I assume, after a week with her, your lust-addled mind is clearing and you are no longer talking nonsense about making her a member of the family.’

  At this, Stephen released his brother’s coat, letting him drop to the floor. It was a relief to see Arthur waver on his feet, for a moment, then remain standing. What Stephen intended would hardly have been sporting had he collapsed.

  He punched his brother, once, hard enough to break his aristocratic nose, and turned and left. It proved, yet again, that one did not need words, when one had actions.

  Chapter Eight

  When Margot finally woke, it was to daylight streaming through the curtains of the room and an aching head. There had been wine. Too much wine. And too little food, although it was not as if he hadn’t offered.

  Fanworth.

  She sat up, gathering the covers about her for modesty. She was alone in the room save for a breakfast tray, set for one, and growing cold beside the bed.

  She glanced around again to be absolutely sure that there was no servant lurking about, ready to help her. Then she climbed out of bed to get her clothes, grabbing a piece of burned toast as she did so. She did not remember lying with him on the previous evening. But then, she did not remember much of anything, other than the wine. Had he truly left her untouched? And if so, why? Perhaps she had done something to render herself repellent to him. Dear lord, she hoped she had not been sick. That would be even more embarrassing than waking naked in a strange bed.

  But his disgust and her humiliation might be the easiest way out of the situation. If he had already tired of her, she could go home and sin no more, and pretend that none of this had ever happened. Assuming, of course, that he did not call down the law upon her because of the necklace.

  But what should have been a relief left her vaguely sad. Was what he had felt for her really so shallow that it could be satisfied in a single night? It put paid to the fantasies she’d had that her dear Mr Standish would confess his title and his love, and offer some deep and lasting connection.

  She’d have had to refuse, of course. Such a match would have been unworkable for both of them. But still, she could live a lifetime alone, sustained on an offer and perhaps a few chaste kisses…

  Passionate kisses, she corrected, rewriting the fantasy to include experience. Or perhaps the thing that had actually occurred between them. To have been loved once and well, as he had done the previous week, would be a bittersweet memory to balance a lifetime as a spinster. It would have been even better if he had been the honourable man she had fallen in love with and not a base villain who must be laughing at her naïveté.

  She dressed hurriedly and downed the chocolate that had gone cold in the pot waiting for her to wake. The wine-induced headache eased somewhat with the food and a splash of cold water from the basin. Now, she must rush to the shop, for the clock on the mantel showed half past ten. Her arrival in yesterday’s gown would be a fresh embarrassment. It was far too late to sneak back to her rooms before the business opened for the day. But the sleep had done her good. In spite of the humiliation, she was better rested than at any time since she’d discovered the truth about the rubies.

  She reached the door to the hall, only to find it locked. She cursed once, softly, in French, then she rang for a servant. And rang again when the footman who came refused to allow her to pass without the master’s permission.

  The second summons brought the same housekeeper she had met on her first visit. Mrs Sims stared at her with a knowing glance that informed her she was no better than she should be, if she was on the wrong side of a man’s door in the middle of the morning. A single, disapproving nod added that it was exactly what she has suspected would happen when Margot had turned up on the kitchen doorstep. After this protracted, silent judgement, she said, ‘Lord Fanworth told me nothing about what to do with you, miss, other than to feed you. Which I did.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ Margot said, attempting a friendly smile that had no effect on the scowling servant. ‘It was delicious.’

  By the surprised look on the housekeeper’s face, Margot suspected that the tray had been served cold as a message from the kitchen.

  ‘Now that breakfast is over, I must be going,’ she said, giving another encouraging smile.

  ‘Lord Fanworth said nothing about that, miss,’ said Mrs Sims, not moving from the doorway. Though she had wished to bar entrance on the first visit, for the second, Mrs Sims meant to guard the exit.

  ‘Is Lord Fanworth in the habit of imprisoning women in his bedchambers against their will?’ She’d meant it to sound sarcastic. But given the circumstances, it was a legitimate question.

  The footman and the housekeeper looked at each other for a moment, trying to decide if an answer was expected. Then Mrs Sims said, ‘It will take some time before the carriage can be prepared.’

  ‘Then I shall walk,’ Margot announced and pushed past them into the hall.

  ‘I will summon a maid to accompany you,’ Mrs Simms said with a sigh that implied that would take almost as long as the carriage. Clearly, she was stalling until Lord Fanworth could return.

  ‘A maid will not be necessary,’ Margot said and headed towards the servants’ stairs.

  The housekeeper cleaned her throat. ‘The door is this way, miss.’ Apparently paying the wages of sin involved exiting through the front door in broad daylight.

  ‘Very well, then.’ Margot straightened her bonnet and walked, head held high, down the stairs, out the front door and into the street. Her willingness to walk alone probably cemented her impropriety in the eyes of the housekeeper. But in Margot’s opinion, it would be worse to be seen with a member of Fanworth’s staff than to walk alone. She had no wish to add to the rumours already spreading about her improper relationship with the marquess.

  Once she was on her way, she walked quickly to discourage conversation, should she meet someone she knew. If someone saw her walking on the wrong side of the street and noticed her attire was not immaculately starched perfection, there was little that could be said in argument.

  * * *

  Once she arrived at the building that housed her shop, she had hoped to slip up the side stairs to her rooms, largely unnoticed. It should have been easy for the main salon was already crowded with customers.

  But at the first sight of her, Jasper seized her hand and pulled her to the back room. ‘Miss de Bryun, we were terribly worried about you. You were not here to unlock the door. And so much has occurred…’

  ‘Calm yourself.’ She detached his hand from her arm and glanced around the room. ‘Where is Mr Pratchet? He should be helping in the main room, with the shop as busy as this.’

  ‘That is the problem, miss. Mr Pratchet is gone.’

  For a moment, all she felt was relief. Then she remembered the trouble it was likely to cause. ‘Where did he go?’ she said, puzzled. It wa
s too early for a trip to the bank. And she could think of no other reason he might leave his post.

  ‘We have no idea,’ Jasper said. ‘He did not say. But I do not think he is coming back. After the marquess spoke to him, he took his tools and—’

  ‘The marquess was here?’ she said, both surprised and annoyed. ‘What did he want?’

  Jasper looked even more nervous at this. ‘He did not say, either. He asked after you, of course.’

  ‘Or course,’ she said drily.

  ‘When he was told you were not here, he went into the workroom and spoke to Mr Pratchet, in private.’

  ‘Do not pretend that none of you was eavesdropping,’ she said in frustration. She had told the staff never to gossip about clients. But it would be most annoying if they took this instance, above all others, to follow a rule that they broke with regularity.

  ‘He barely spoke,’ Jasper admitted. ‘And when he did, it was too quiet to hear. But he seemed angry. He nearly set the workbench on fire. The minute he left, Mr Pratchet gathered his tools and fled.’

  What had she said the previous evening, to bring about such a visit? Perhaps it had been her mention of the man’s offer that had set him off. The marquess might have taken exception to it and decided to dispense with a rival. It was madness. Was he really so possessive as to allow her no male friends? She had not really intended to wed Pratchet. Nothing short of total catastrophe would convince her to marry a man who was so shamelessly scheming for her hand.

  Perhaps he was angry that Pratchet had revealed his part in the deception. If so, she was not sure she minded that he had faced the wrath of the marquess. Why should all the punishment for this situation fall on her shoulders? The loss of a goldsmith would be an inconvenience. But she’d have fired him herself, eventually, just to stop the proposals. The more she thought of it, the better she felt that he was gone.

  ‘I think I understand what has happened,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘You are right. We will not be seeing Mr Pratchet again. Which means we are without a goldsmith.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to focus her thoughts. ‘We will manage as best we can, today. If someone comes, seeking repairs, we will send them to Mr Fairweather in Bristol. Tomorrow, I shall put the ad back in the London papers to replace Mr Pratchet.’

  ‘Very good, miss.’

  ‘I will check the workbench to see what he has done. Hopefully, Mrs Harkness will not come for her necklace. I did not think he had finished mending it yesterday.’

  Jasper looked nervous for a moment. ‘Miss Ross dealt with that this morning, miss.’

  ‘Did she now?’ Margot glanced around the room to see the youngest of the shop girls peering at her from the back room.

  With a twitch of her skirt and a bowed head, Miss Ross stepped forward. ‘It was only a single weak link, Miss de Bryun. And I have watched Mr Pratchet work, when the shop was not busy. A twist of the pliers, boric acid to prevent discolouration, a bit of flux, a bit of polish…’ She gave another curtsy. ‘I was very careful not to heat the rest of the chain.’

  ‘It sounds as if you learned well,’ Margot said, doubtfully. ‘But I would still have preferred that you had waited until I returned, so I could see the finished work before it left the shop.’

  ‘I sized a ring, as well,’ the girl said shyly. ‘It is still here.’

  ‘Show it me.’ Margot felt a strange thrill, half-apprehension, half-excitement. Could the recurring problem of overreaching goldsmiths be solved as easily as this?

  The girl retreated into the back and returned with a plain gold band. ‘It was only half a size,’ she said modestly. ‘And up is easier than down. But really, down is nothing more than fixing a very big chain link.’

  Margot took the ring and slipped it on to the sizing tool, noting the perfect roundness and the tidy way it rested, just on the size that the client had wished. Then she took up a jeweller’s loupe, examining each fraction of the curve for imperfection or weakness. When she looked up again, she smiled. ‘You do nice work, Miss Ross. Very tidy. I am sure, if this is a sample, that the chain was fine as well. Are there other repairs that you feel capable of attempting?’

  They brought out the list and examined each item. The girl felt confident with all but two of the current requests.

  ‘Perhaps we can find something similar in the shop that you might use to practise those skills,’ Margot suggested. ‘We could break an existing piece and let you mend it.’

  ‘Ruin good work?’ the girl said, shocked.

  ‘They are my pieces. There is no reason we cannot do as we wish with them,’ Margot said reasonably. ‘If it means that I do not have to place an ad for goldsmith, it is worth the risk.’ Even better if it meant that she would not have to put up with the inconvenience of a gentleman developing a penchant for her, or her shop.

  ‘From now on, I wish you to spend as much time as possible at the workbench, attempting these repairs in order of difficulty. If that goes well, we can discuss wax casting.’

  The girl’s eyes lit up. ‘I watched him at that, as well. He sometimes let me work the little bellows and pour moulds. It would be ever so exciting.’

  ‘Very good, then.’ Margot thought for a moment. ‘And it is hardly fair for me to employ you at the rate of a junior clerk if you are taking on more work. As of this moment, you will see a rise in salary to reflect your new duties.’

  The girl’s eyes were as round as the ring in her hand. ‘Thank you, miss.’

  She felt a ripple of jealousy throughout the room. It was hardly warranted. Other than Jasper, her staff had done little more than gossip and panic. ‘As for the rest,’ she said, loud enough to be heard, ‘we must see how we do without Mr Pratchet to help with the customers. It is quite possible that there might be more for all, if one less person is employed here.’

  There was an awed whispering amongst the other clerks. And for the first time in a week it was not about Miss de Bryun’s recent strange behaviour.

  * * *

  All went well, for the rest of the day, except for one incident.

  The shop was near to closing and the room quiet. The two well-dressed ladies who were her final customers had refused her help more than once. Yet they continued to glance in her direction as they pretended to stare down into a case of diamond ear bobs.

  Margot moved closer to them, hoping that they would be encouraged to either make a purchase or leave. It was near to eight o’clock and despite the good night’s sleep she’d got, she was eager to return to her own rooms.

  Before they realised she was near, she caught two dire words of their whispered conversation.

  ‘Fanworth’s mistress.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘A gentleman to see you, my lord.’

  Stephen looked up from the writing desk in his private sitting room and waited for the footman to explain himself.

  ‘Lord William Felkirk,’ the man supplied.

  ‘I will be there shortly.’ He had been expecting such a visit since the last time he’d seen Margot de Bryun.

  She deserved an apology, of course. Once she had forgiven him, he could make the offer he’d intended from the first. She’d been an innocent dupe in the matter of the necklace and would never have been involved at all, had he not taken an interest in her. That had been the thing to draw his brother’s negative attention. Then, Stephen had made everything worse by jumping to conclusions. But how could he ever set things right if she refused to so much as look him in the eye?

  Conversation had been so easy between them, just a fortnight ago. She’d looked up and smiled each time he passed by the shop, as if she’d been searching each face that passed by her window, hoping to see him. In turn, he had been able to talk for hours without having to plot out each sentence to avoid embarrassment.

  Now, when he paused each day in his walk past her shop, she gave him a Medusa stare, as if she would strike him dead should he cross the threshold. In response, his tongue felt like leather in his mouth. Even
if he could have managed speech, when they had their agreement, he had given his word not to return to the shop. He could not very well hold private words of apology up on a card from the other side of the front window.

  It was some consolation to see that when she was angry, her colour was slightly improved. But he missed the carefree happiness that had drawn him to her in the first place. He must find a way to return it to her, if only to put things back the way he’d found them before he had entered her shop and ruined her life.

  Since he could not manage to speak to her, he’d thought a letter might do. He attempted one on several occasions, his left hand smudging and crabbing the letters, forming them even worse than usual. Carefully phrased sentences, which spoke of ‘mistakes’ and ‘misunderstandings’ were feeble and inadequate for the situation at hand. After hours of painstaking composition, he’d managed a worthy attempt. He’d taken full responsibility for what had happened. He offered marriage if she would have it. At the very least, he would give her so much money that she might close the shop and move to a place where no one had ever heard of her, or her association with him.

  It was returned unopened.

  Apparently, she feared another request for a tryst and had decided that their association was at an end. He could not blame her. By now, even he had heard the rumours that the Marquess of Fanworth had taken up with the jeweller. When he entered an assembly room, pushed his way through a rout, or attended a musicale, ladies whispered about it and gentlemen congratulated him on his excellent taste.

  He glared at all of them until they went silent. But as soon as he was out of earshot, the conversation began again. Avoiding her did not stop the gossip. But going to her would only make it worse.

  Something must be done. This visit from Felkirk came as a relief. She might choose to shun Stephen. It was wise to do so, he had earned her scorn. But in her brother-in-law, Stephen would have an intermediary who could not be ignored.